Matthew Hayden: “Fakhar Zaman never arrived, but when he did, it was too late”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Australia opener Matthew Hayden said Pakistan top order batsman Fakhar Zaman started firing too late in the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup.
Zaman was dropped from the playing XI after the opening game against the Netherlands and went on to miss the next five matches.
He was eventually brought back to replace Imam-ul-Haq and smashed 81 and 126 not out against Bangladesh and New Zealand respectively.
However, Hayden admitted that he wished the 33-year-old would have played like that at the beginning of the World Cup.
“Fakhar Zaman never arrived, but when he did, it was too late,” he told ESPNcricinfo as quoted by Geo Super.
Pakistan started with back-to-back wins over the Netherlands and Sri Lanka before faltering against India, Australia, Afghanistan and South Africa.
Despite fighting back to defeat Bangladesh and New Zealand, they were unable to make it through to the semi-finals.
To add insult to injury, the men in green lost their final group stage game against England by 93 runs.
Pakistan will now face Australia in a three-match Test series, but Zaman was not included in the 18-man squad.
Instead, he recently played for Abbottabad Region in the National T20 Cup, where he amassed 320 runs in eight matches, which included three fifties, at an average of 45.71 and a strike-rate of 135.02.
Pakistan lost the first Test against Australia in Perth by 360 runs and will look to bounce back in the second Test, which starts on December 26 in Melbourne.
Pakistan Squad for Australia Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Aamer Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Imam-ul-Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Shah Afridi